OSSINING – Planners for the Sing Sing prison museum are targeting a 2025 opening — the 200th anniversary of the state prison perched on the Hudson River.

But, as with New York City’s National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, the public may get its first glimpse in two or three years. A smaller preview center is part of the plan. The center could display some prison artifacts and host programming, such as discussion about modern-day issues of incarceration and inmate re-entry into society.

“To really bring people in to see the project — they can get a better flavor for what the museum will eventually become,” said Jerry Faiella, the museum project administrator and executive director of Historic Hudson River Towns.

The museum is slated to include the 1936 light-colored brick Power House that served as a power plant and is just outside the prison walls. Plans are for the Power House to be the location of permanent exhibitions, programming and theater experiences.

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The building at Sing Sing that will be the prison museum.(Photo: Peter Carr/The Journal News)

Also part of the plan is the cell block that dates to 1825, is within the prison’s footprint and about 400 feet south of the Power House.

So far, nearly $3 million in state grants are slated for the museum, Faiella said, and private donations are being sought as well. The money will be used to rehabilitate the Power House and get it to where people can occupy parts of it, including creation of the preview center. The overall cost of the museum is being determined.

“Next year, we’re actually going to see improvements made to the physical space, so it’s exciting,” said Faiella, a former New Castle town administrator and Ossining village manager.

The museum has a board of trustees, with Robert W. Elliott, a former Croton-on-Hudson mayor, as chairman. The museum, which has filed paperwork to be a nonprofit, will put a strong focus on education. Its website includes a logo of an unlocked lock with the slogan: “Unlock the past … and open minds.”

Brent Glass, the museum’s senior adviser and a former director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, said the Sing Sing museum will be unique in the country for several reasons. The prison was the largest of its kind during its early years, has become an iconic name in film and television, and its proximity to New York City has given it greater visibility.

“I’ve been fond of saying every chapter in criminal justice history in this country has a few pages written at Sing Sing,” Glass said. “There’s not a single issue you can think of, including the incarceration of women, capital punishment, major efforts at reform, popular culture, and then contemporary reforms — all of it has some connection to Sing Sing.”

At the time of the 1825 cell block’s completion, it was probably the country’s largest building. Glass said it is a ruin now but in “very stable condition,” and the goal is to provide access to museum visitors.

As envisioned, he said, visitors would enter at the Power House and then go through a corridor about 400 feet to the cell block.

The cell block is 476 feet long, Glass said, but museum planners don't need access to all of that.

"We would like to bring people in at least probably 75 to 100 feet into the building so they can get a sense of this enormous structure that once housed at a minimum 1,200 men and probably at certain points in its history there were even more than 1,200," he said.

Glass said today there is a culture of reform at the prison that focuses on education and gives prisoners opportunities to improve themselves, such as a Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, and other things that prepare inmates for life outside when released.

“We want to showcase that as well in the museum,” he said.

A 2025 museum opening might sound like a long time from now, Glass said, but, in the museum world, “that’s very soon,” particularly given the level of programmatic offerings planners want to provide.

“I’m very confident in saying that what we’re doing at Sing Sing will be nationally significant,” he said, “maybe even internationally significant.”